Jan. 9, 2003

By Jonathan Gust, Villanova Media Relations

At seven o'clock in the morning, a young Gary Buchanan was in the gym working his way around folding chairs set up as screens to take 250 jump shots. That night, he was back on the court with his shooting coach to stroke 250 more from all around the arc. That was his daily high school ritual as he pushed and clawed his way towards his basketball dreams - for even natural born shooters like Buchanan know that they cannot reach elite status without practice, practice and more practice.

Buchanan found a love and knowledge for basketball on his own. He taught himself to shoot and he schooled himself on the skills of the game. It was the technique that he had to pick up, with the help of others, along the way.

"No one really taught me how to shoot," said Buchanan looking back. "They taught me technique more than actually shooting - like how to hold a ball, where to release the ball, and how to follow-through."

"The only time I really tinkered with my shot was between my freshman and my sophomore seasons in high school. Ever since my shooting coach Dennis Becker taught me my technique, where to hold the ball and where to release the ball, I haven't really changed. He would come with me everyday, every weekend, at seven o'clock in the morning to shoot and then we would go back in the afternoon or evening and shoot again. Because I knew if I wanted to go to college, that was something I needed to do."

Buchanan got his first taste of AAU ball during the summer before his freshman season at Valley Park High School in Saint Louis, Missouri, and it was there that he found he would have to work harder than ever before if he wanted to excel at the next level. There were mornings where he couldn't even lift his arms because his shoulders ached so badly. But he rarely questioned the long days and the heavy work load...except once.

"At one point with my AAU team things got so bad that I wanted to quit basketball and go back to my natural sport which was baseball," said Buchanan. "I wanted to give up basketball and I told my AAU coach Vince Estrada that. He was calling me and calling me and I wasn't calling him back."

"Finally, Coach Estrada came over my house and was like, 'what are you doing?' I told him it was too tough for me and that I didn't want to play basketball anymore. I wanted to play baseball. He told me, 'you're good at baseball, but basketball can take you a lot more places. It can take you around the world.' I had never traveled before so I was pretty interested to go on the road and travel. He helped me see the possibilities."

Estrada's talk gave Buchanan the confidence to return to the court where he strived as a star guard for Valley Park. In four seasons of basketball at Valley Park, he would go on to score 2,330 points.

Buchanan was highly recruited coming out of Valley Park, but because he struggled at times in the classroom, his coach Jere Quinn thought it would be beneficial for him to spend one year at a prep school rather than go directly to the collegiate ranks.

"I was highly recruited as a senior," said Buchanan. "I had scholarships from Arkansas and Texas on the table. It's just that when I was coming out, my grades were poor. I was one of those kids that slacked off a lot. I didn't really care about anything as long as I was just going out there having fun on the court. And my school work was suffering because of it. By my senior year I had dug myself such a big hole that I was eligible for basketball but I didn't have my ACT or my SAT scores. Vince Estrada came to me and said that if I really wanted to stay with basketball, he had been looking at schools for me and thought I should think about it. He caught up with Coach Jere Quinn at St. Thomas More, and he offered me a scholarship. I ended up going up there and having a great year."

Buchanan started strong at St. Thomas More, and never looked back. The ride was not without its growing pains, however, as the journey from St. Louis to Oakdale, Connecticut took its toll on Buchanan.

"It took a little bit of persuading to get me to go to St. Thomas More because no kid wants to go through an extra year of high school," said Buchanan. "But it got me to buckle down. We had to read a book a week. We had tests almost everyday. In addition to those classes we had SAT time where we were going over SAT and ACT terms."

"When I first got there (Oakdale, Conn.), actually I wanted to cry," added Buchanan. "There was nothing out there. Cell phones don't work. In my hall there was one pay phone on the floor for 24 guys. But the whole experience made me an independent person."

During the 1998-99 season at St. Thomas More, Buchanan put up 18 points and six rebounds per contest. He hit over 41 percent of his shots from three-point range, and was named to the All-Tournament Team at the New England Prep School Championships.

With all the accolades heading Buchanan's way, schools like Marquette and Villanova were hot on the recruiting trail. It was Villanova that finally landed the services of this talented guard.

It isn't everyday that a freshman can step right in and contribute immediately in his rookie campaign at the collegiate ranks, but that was exactly what Buchanan did for the Wildcats in 1999-2000.

"I really didn't expect to come in and contribute," said Buchanan. "When we were going through practice and preseason, I'm looking around me going 'these guys are better than me.' And as we went on with practice, Coach Lappas came to me and said 'you're the 15th man on the bench' and we only had 12 guys."

"Personally, I didn't take that too well and when he told me, I didn't know how to react," added Buchanan. "So every time I got the ball, I wanted to score or do something to help the team. I think by him saying that to me, it made me work harder and realize, "I can do this, I can play Villanova Basketball."

Buchanan went out and proved that he could fit in just fine on the Main Line. He started in 22 games as a freshman, averaged 12.5 points per game and hit 76 three-point field goals. Scoring in double figures 21 times on the year including six times over 20 points, Buchanan was named to the Big East All-Rookie Team following the season.

Despite improving his scoring average to 13.4 points per game as a sophomore in 2000-01, Buchanan became a centerpiece of opponent's defensive schemes and saw his shooting percentage from the field and from the arc drop from one season earlier. What he lost in other areas, he made up for at the free throw line. Buchanan led the nation in free throw shooting at 94.2 percent (97-of-103). In addition, he went on to break the all-time NCAA Division I record for consecutive free throws made (65) as he ended up hitting 73 straight before finally missing.

"I wasn't happy with my sophomore year," said Buchanan. "My freshman year, people didn't know who I was so I was able to get a lot of open looks. My sophomore year people were like 'we can't let Buchanan beat us now'. They keyed on me much more."

Following Buchanan's sophomore season, a coaching change brought Jay Wright to Villanova from Hofstra. Wright instilled in Buchanan an added confidence to go out and do the things that made him one of the most feared long distance shooters in the nation.

"Going into my junior year, coach Wright was like 'you've been in this league for two years now. No one is just going to let you shoot.' And that's when I knew that I had to work on other parts of my game- putting the ball on the floor, getting the ball to my teammates, grabbing rebounds," said Buchanan.

"Coach Wright said that defense was the main area he wanted me to work on," added Buchanan. "Coach said, 'if you don't play defense, you're not going to play.' He said that there are a thousand shooters out there, and that I have to come in and work on my rebounding, and my passing in order to make a name for myself in other ways. There are going to be nights when I am not shooting the ball well, where you can do other things to help the team."

Buchanan was the offensive force behind the Wildcats in 2001-2002 he would go on to average 17.8 points per game. He also improved his field goal percentage to 42.4 percent and shot 42.3 percent from the three-point stripe. Wright's influence on Buchanan was a positive one as the junior guard became an all-around force on both ends of the floor one season ago.

"Coach Wright tells us, the more I yell at you, the more I love you," said Buchanan. "So when Coach Wright yells at me, I just think that he wants me to get that much better. He wants me to be a great player. When I come down the floor, I'm thinking 'it's on me, it's on me to work that much harder in practice'."

"Coach is a very hands on guy," added Buchanan. "He is a dream coach to play for. He's one of those guys that's totally different on the court. On the floor, he'll yell at you and scream at you, but once you step off the court he'll let you sleep at his house. When you have a coach like that that loves you, you want to work hard every possession for him."

Coming off of three consecutive NIT Tournament appearances in his first three seasons on the Main Line, Buchanan had his site's set much higher heading into this season - the NCAA's. With a rotation that would include four freshmen in 2002-2003, however, the NCAA Tournament would seem like a long shot to those not familiar with the situation; but like many, Buchanan knows that these are no ordinary freshmen.

"Those guys were getting a lot of hype heading into the season," said Buchanan. "I just couldn't wait for those guys to get up here, so we could just play together because the main goal is to get to the [NCAA] tournament. When those guys came in, I know they were going to be impact players right away. Randy and Allan can score and that helps me and Ricky Wright a lot. I feel comfortable with those guys making plays. I know there's going to me times when I'll have two guys coming at me and I'm going to have to make that extra pass, but I know that they're capable of making the big shot."

The season did not start off like Buchanan hoped as he broke his thumb during the preseason. Then just when it looked like he was on his way to recovery, knee injuries to both knees slowed him even further.

"When I broke my thumb, I was like 'ah, it's just my thumb, it's not on my shooting hand', but even if it was on my shooting hand, I had to stay positive," said Buchanan. "Then, I hurt my knee and I thought I was out for the season. I couldn't even walk. Then I came back from that and the very next day, I hyper-extend my left knee. It was tough to stay positive."

"I was pretty much down in the dumps, but I had surgery on the knee which went well," added Buchanan about his injury. "The very next day I was walking up and down steps. Jeff [Pierce] checked me out and gave me the OK. The coaching staff had a lot of confidence in me and put me in without even practicing a week. At first I was a little nervous, but as time went on, I got more confident."

After missing the first two games of the season due to injury, Buchanan returned to the court against Loyola Marymount in the Great Alaska Shootout. He did not miss a beat, as the senior went off for 13 points in only 19 minutes of action. One game later versus No. 9 Michigan State, Buchanan lit up the Spartans for 29 points in an 81-73 upset win for the Wildcats.

If the early season is any indication of things to come, Buchanan and the `Cats might be well on their way to the school's first NCAA Tournament since the 1998-99 campaign.

"Like everyone, I want to go to the NCAA Tournament," said Buchanan. "With this team right now and the tools we have, if we keep from making mistakes, I think we have a chance to go really far. We've got Ricky (Wright) and Jay (Jason Fraser) down on the inside, we've got me, Snow (Derrick Snowden), Allan (Ray), Andrew (Sullivan) and Curt (Curtis Sumpter) out on the wings. I think that could take us along way."